The Charges...

On Saturday afternoon, Rep. Mike Beard (R-Shakopee) was on AM 1280's Northern Alliance Radio Network's "The Final Word" talking about the Legislative Auditor Committee's report that Legislative Auditor Jim Nobels would be looking into allegations of mis-management in the AG's office. Rep. Beard went to great lengths to remind listeners that the LA investigation was NOT about the alleged unionization issues...instead, Rep Beard said that the investigation was geared around the allegations of ethics violations that were brought up in Amy Lawler's letter.

In this case, we were really reluctant to get into telling another agency, especially another Constitutional officer who is completely seperate from the Legislature how to run his or her office. If she wants to make people mad and lead to union organization, well I get that's...that's her business - that's not ours. But what began to arise was a point where one of the attorneys came forward and said I was asked to, and in fact many attorneys were demanded that we actually add to...what's the word I'm looking for...affidavits, to file lawsuits before we actually had probable cause to do so just so it could make the 10 o'clock news, take sworn affidavits and add to them after the deputation portion has been finished..and these are really grave ethical lapses...They are very serious charges...and it went so far that the one young attorney, Amy Lawler, and I don't know her and I don't know that young woman I have only seen her work and that letter that she sent to each of our offices...where she said I have been suspended because I raised these issues, this has nothing to do with the unionization effort, this has to do with being asked to misrepresent, lie, cheat and steal...that's when it got even the DFLers attention on the Legislative Audit Commission...

The charges, as laid out by Ms. Lawler in her letter, are as follows:

• being hired with the explicit instruction that the position required loyalty to Attorney General Swanson, and that those advocating for the union were not being loyal.
• being ordered to violate a special master's order.
• being instruction by a supervisor to add statements to a consumer's affidavit that the attorney had reason to believe the consumer did not actually say. The attorney refused, and later resigned.
• being ordered to issue a civil investigative demand against a company when the attorney did not have reasonable cause to believe the company had violated the law. The attorney refused, and later resigned.
• being asked by a supervisor to make a post on the Minnesota Lawyer blog, during the workday from office computers, lauding the Swanson administration. On one specific occasion, a post praising the office appeared under an attorney's name during a time when the attorney was physically in a meeting elsewhere, and could not have made such a post. That attorney later resigned.
• being ordered to tell consumers that they were being invited to meet with the attorney general, and being directed not to tell the consumers that the event was also a press conference.
• being told to give an agency client advice that would not have been in the client's best interest and was not legally sound. The attorney refused and later resigned.
• an instance in which a supervisor inserted information into affidavits that was acutally false; the assistant attorney general removed these statements, and was them subjected to retaliation.

Emphasis added. These are serious charges and if found to be accurate could actually cause Ms. Lawler to loose HER law license should it be found that she did any of these things...even if it were under duress.

The next million dollar question is how to proceed. Rep. Beard continues...

...how then do we proceed with sticking our noses into another duly elected representatives business and investigating her office...one of the things we were concerned about was establishing a precident...taking a vote and ordering him (Auditor Nobels) to have a look...and the Auditor explained to us that he has looked into the Attorney Generals office 3 times already...in 2003...there was that strange deal with American Bankers out of Florida...that Atty General Mike Hatch went after... on two other cases since then, the Legislative Auditor did look into matters in the Attorney Generals office...

OK - so precident IS there for the Legislative Auditor has jurisdiction....what latitude does he have...is this going to be a witch hunt?

...on a bi-partisan basis we agreed that what we didn't want was the disease that seems to afflict Washington where a new administration comes in and Congress immediately enables a special investivator, with a bunch of money and a staff and says happy hunting go find some trouble...we didn't want that to happen so we specifically told Mr. Nobels, do not, if you get into matters where it appears to be a union/management disagreement - that's not our business here..there are processes in place and rules on how those things play out. However if we are getting into a breach of professional ethics, like was alleged with altering affidavits after they have been sworn and filed, if we are into situations where people are ordered to and indeed did file frivilous lawsuits before there was just cause for doing so...if you find these things then Mr. Nobels we trust you to continue to look...we are not giving you license for a witch hunt...

Of course, the next question is if Mr. Nobels does find proof that this happened, who prosecutes the top lawyer in the state?